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I put out: 1 bath towel per person, 1 hand towel per person, 1 washcloth per person, 1 beach towel per person, stack of 5 black makeup remover towels on the shelf. Guests can use additional towels in linen closet in the guest bedroom.
I have sets of 6 bath towels in a dedicated linen closet in the guest bedroom as well as 12 hand towels and 12 washcloths. Long term guests are told they can change out (or I can do it for them) towels every other day or put the ones they don’t want to use anymore in their laundry basket or the laundry room and I’ll replenish.
You might consider adding a second towel for each female guest because women often use a second towel for their hair. Or just leave an extra or two in a cabinet. It shouldn’t increase cost much, especially if they’re available but not out, but will increase comfort and a sense of care fairly dramatically.
We have a washer/dryer in the unit. I’ve found that if I leave out extra towels, they WILL use them, and that’s a whole lot of extra laundry. So I don’t. Most stays are 2-3 nights, so I leave 1 bath towel per guest: since there are 2 bathrooms, I hang one bath towel in each, along with a hand towel over it, then stack however many additional bath towels are needed, on the counter. Then I leave approximately 5 regular washcloths and 3 makeup washcloths. This seems to work well, and I never get complaints.
Oh, and I do leave an extra bath towel, hand towel, washcloth in the linen closet, just in case. These NEVER get used.
??? You don’t pay for electricity or other utility to run the washing machine, and heat water? You don’t pay for laundry soap or other laundry products? Your time has no value? I don’t get it.
Obviously washing 6 towels as opposed to two is 3 times the amount of resources used.
I’m with @RiverRock on this. What is the marginal increase of electricity, soap and time to run a wash that has x items in it versus x +y items?
Importantly, this is not true, not close to being true in my situation.
For me the major ‘cost’ of extra towels is ‘Where do I put them?’ though I can easily put them in bedroom closets. We have an on-site and free [to guests] clothes washer/dryer, so guests can also wash them themselves.
I’ve gone through the numbers on the electricity cost for washing and gas cost for drying. These are not [at all] big numbers here. I’ve spoken to some appliance repair folks who say the greater cost is not running the washer/dryer but running it overfilled.
I wasn’t referring to the amount of the extra cost or whether it will break the bank, but to say that washing 3 times the quantity of laundry costs nothing more simply isn’t true.
It’s three times the amount of water, 3 times the amount of hot water if you use that to wash towels, 3 times the amount of laundry soap, 3 times the time it takes.
And just because something is a negligible extra cost doesn’t mean it’s okay to use up resources to accommodate our-over-the-top first-world indulgences, like using a clean towel every day. Our planet is suffering hugely from this attitude.
I get what you’re saying, the intention of it, but, really, mathematically, it is nowhere near a 3x difference.
When I do a load of a wash, it uses the same amount of water and laundry soap every time. There’s no difference. Maybe it takes 3 times the amount of time to fold them but that’s a matter of 30 seconds or something (no one’s time is that valuable).
We started dropping off our laundry for the listings several years ago now. I just did the math, and if our guests used 6 towels instead of 2 towels, the difference in cost to us would be either $4.07 or $0 because we get every 11th load free. It’s purposely not accounted for in the budget so it will cover variances like this.
Besides, a lot of guests use 0 towels or half the amount of towels (1 towel) so you have to put that in the equation too. Basically, it works out. It may be that there is a 10% difference or no difference at all when averaged out over a year or any other defined period of time.
I don’t have children and barely have a car (my husband and I share one and use it 25-30 miles/month on average. That’s less than 1000 miles a year even adding in a big trip to somewhere 300 miles away. Kids and cars are two choices that put enormous strain on resources and the environment that I don’t participate in. And I make lots of other low-impact choices too … so Ima gonna use a fresh towel for my face every single day so that I don’t get an eye infection and go blind and I’m not gonna feel bad about it for even one second.
It’s not about towels, it’s about balance.
I’m sorry to be so cynical, it’s not my usual way, but doing a load of laundry that has 1 towel in it instead of having 3 towels in it is not going to compensate for the environmental impact of even one single guest that either drove or flew to get to your listing
Of course there isn’t. But you have to do more loads of wash the more laundry you have, obviously. I can’t believe this needs to be pointed out.
I’ve used the same face towel for a week my entire adult life of 55 years and never gotten an eye infection.
Yes, all of us pick and choose the ways in which we make less of an environmental impact and rationalize why it’s okay to do as we choose. We should just recognize it as such.
It doesn’t. I get where you’re coming from but your example is flawed. 3x the towels does not equal 3x the resources. It’s a gross exaggeration. And it makes even less sense when you apply it to the difference of a guest having 1 towel or 3 towels.
Going from washing 2 towels to washing 6 towels was the example of 3x as many towels and thus 3x the amount of water, laundry soap and time. But 4 additional towels don’t create 3x the amount of laundry. 4 towels would have to create 2 additional loads of laundry to increase the water, soap and time by 3. Unless, of course, you’re washing 2 towels at a time, which would be the bigger issue
I just saw your other answer. No, I would never wash 2 towels at a time, not even on a low water setting. It’s still wasteful, especially of time, and it’s harder on the machine.
Of course it is. The more laundry in the machine, the more water is necessary to allow the items to move around freely enough to actually get clean. That is why there are settings on washing machines for the size of the load.
The reason why it’s recommended to wash a full load is because there’s a certain minimum amount of water and energy needed just to run a load, any load.
If it’s a smaller load, somewhat less water MIGHT be used but there’s likely a minimum amount of water and energy needed to run any load.
Above you talk about :
I don’t set it on a ‘full’ load, I just set it ‘on.’
My clothes washer will sense how big the load is and take in water accordingly , but it’s not a linear function. That’s why it’s most cost effective to wash full loads.
Because it takes pretty much the SAME if not exactly the SAME energy and water to run a load that is 100% full and one that is, say, 80% full. And while a load that is 50% of a full load might take less water and energy than a 100% full load, the amount of water and energy is not 50% because it’s not a linear function.
Which is why people try to fill the dishwasher before they turn it on. A dishwasher, unlike a washing machine, uses the same amount of water regardless of how full it is, so it’s not a comparable analogy to a washing machine.
I feel like I’m talking to people who failed 3rd grade math. If you can fit 8 bath towels in a load of wash, and you have 8 bath towels a week to wash, you have 1 load of towel laundry a week. If you use 24 towels in a week, you’ll have 3 loads. Duh.
